The virtualization of security: Philosophies of capture and resistance in Baudrillard, Agamben and Deleuze

Abstract

The virtual has during the last couple of decades emerged as a forceful conceptual tool in security studies. While used primarily in order to question assumptions about an objective truth concerning the meaning and value of security and different forms of insecurity, the implications of drawing on this concept vary considerably depending on how the virtual is conceptualized, and specifically how the potentiality of the virtual is linked to the process of actualization. Turning to the philosophies of Baudrillard, Agamben and Deleuze, as well as key thinkers in contemporary security studies, this article delineates three different approaches to analysing the virtualization of security.Focusing in particular on how these approaches point to contending views of 'capture' and 'resistance', it is argued that the choice of approach has serious implications for grasping what is at stake politically in the process of virtualization. These implications relate, more precisely, to how the virtual opens up and/or closes down the spaces of resistance that the modern subject of security traditionally has relied upon. In this way, the virtualization of security is not only important for thinking about capture and resistance, but challenges the very ground on which the modern subject of security rests.

Sovereignty, the Hyperreal, and “Taking Back Control”

“…To date, surprisingly few studies have attempted to relate the state of the hyperreal to sovereignty (though on hyppereality's wider applicability to international politics see for example: Der Derian 1990 ;Hehir 2011;Luke 1991aLuke , 1996bLundborg 2016;Merrin 1994). What follows in this paper is an explanation of how, in terms of sovereignty, citizens of advanced mediacracies have "lost the ability to distinguish between the model and the real" (Der Derian 1990, 299).…”

“…Drawing on the body of work associated with Jean Baudrillard (1976Baudrillard ( , 1978Baudrillard ( , 1980Baudrillard ( , 1983Baudrillard ( , 1988Baudrillard ( , 1994Baudrillard ( , 2004Baudrillard ( , 2006, and multiple interpretations of this work (for example, Debrix 1999;Gane 2003;Hehir 2011;Hussey 2003;Lalonde 2018;Lane 2009;Luke 1991aLuke , 1991bLundborg 2016;Merrin 1994;Rubenstein 2008;Weber 1995Weber , 2017, the hyperreal is broadly understood in this paper as a simulated world coming to replace reality; where a consciousness of things has become corrupted by a perception of something that never existed; and where the image of this world becomes imbued with characteristics it has never had and could not possess (see Hehir 2011Hehir , 1073. A hyperreal interpretation of sovereignty emphasizes its ideal and the ways in which its idealized image distracts and conceals inherent contradictions and hypocrisies.…”

Cyber-noir: Cybersecurity and popular culture

“…However, Baudrillard's analysis is conducted at too abstract a level for useful insights into the everyday practices of cybersecurity experts. Although he claims to eschew grand narratives, a pessimistic-and deliberatively provocative-grand narrative is exactly what is offered (Chen, 1987;Lundborg, 2016). In the next sections, I examine the influence of noir at a more concrete level, delving in turn into the visual styles and naming conventions of cybersecurity expert discourses.…”

Schizorevolutions versus microfascisms: The fear of anarchy in state securitisation

“…The blurring of boundaries between state security and social problems leads to a zone of indistinction (Agamben, 1998) in which anyone can become the enemy, the exceptions applying in wartime or in colonies are applied across the state’s terrain, and any area can become like a camp at any moment (1998: 112). Lundborg (2016) explains Agamben’s concept of the virtual – how life is potentially expendable and how this is to be resisted with the refusal to draw lines: ‘the lines that determine who is included and excluded through the actualization of the sovereign ban’ (2016: 265). For example, the securitisation of migration detracts from humanitarian and political-economic frames, drawing Agamben’s lines, and leading to violent, repressive responses (Bigo, 2000; Buonfino, 2004), as is currently evident in the French state’s responses to the jungle in Calais.…”